Sunday, July 15, 2012

According to Birds of Michigan
by Ted Black, “shrubby field edges, hedgerows, tangled riparian
thickets and abandoned, overgrown fields provide the elusive
Black-billed Cuckoo with its preferred nesting haunts. Despite not being
particularly rare in Michigan, it remains an enigma to many would-be
observers.

Arriving in late May, this cuckoo quietly hops, flits
and skulks through low, dense, deciduous vegetation in its ultra-secret
search for sustenance. Only when vegetation is in full bloom will males
issue their loud, long, irregular calls, advertising to females that it
is time to nest. After a brief courtship, newly joined Black-billed
Cuckoo pairs construct a makeshift nest, incubate the eggs and raise
their young, after which they promptly return to their covert lives.

The Black-billed Cuckoo
is one of few birds that thrive on hairy caterpillars, particularly
tent caterpillars. There is even evidence to suggest that populations of
this bird increase when a caterpillar infestation occurs.

This
cuckoo is reluctant to fly more than a short distance during nesting,
but it will migrate as far as northwestern South America to avoid the
North American winter.”

Similarly, “the Yellow-billed Cuckoo
skillfully negotiates its tangled home within impenetrable, deciduous
undergrowth in silence, relying on obscurity for survival.

Then,
for a short period during nesting, the male cuckoo temps fate by issuing
a barrage of loud, rhythmic courtship calls. Some people have suggested
that the cuckoo has a propensity for calling on dark, cloudy days in
late spring and early summer. It is even called “Rain Crow” in some
parts of its North American range.

In addition to consuming large
quantities of hairy caterpillars, Yellow-billed Cuckoos feast on wild
berries, young frogs and newts, small bird eggs and a variety of
insects, including beetles, grasshoppers and cicadas.

Though some
Yellow-billed Cuckoos may lay eggs in the unattended nests of
neighboring Black-billed Cuckoos, neither of these cuckoos is considered
to be a “brood parasite.”

Some Yellow-billed Cuckoos migrate as far south as Argentina for the winter.”